The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-12-11
MORE ROT.

J
The latest emanatiOn from the frenzied
or corrupt brain CT its editor, is the
statement that local real estate values
will shrink 50 per cent. Immediately
upon the admission of Utah into the
Union. We venture the assertion that
the man who penned that sentiment
fully relied its enormity. The sheet
would haya rs believe that Statehood
under the proposed Constitution would
be followed by insecurity of property
through adverse legislation; by insecur-
ity of liberty and perhaps life, to the ex.
tent of paralyzing Gentle industry, with
a consequent strangling of the boom,
cessation of improvement and general
stagnation of business. Does the organ
believe this? No; it is nothing more
than a scurvy political trick-a device to
perpetuate the Liberal party with its
hopes and desires at the sacrifice of the
interests of the Latter-day Saints, and
the welfare of every bona fde citizen of
Utah.
The history of the Territory
will demonstrate the baselessness
OF the papers covert charge.
Forty years ago the Mormons
settled this valley, which was then dis
tent from the fringe of civilization over
a thousand miles. Muscle. inuustry
and thrift converted the desert into
fields. Substantial cities and towns
sprang up along the base of the
Wasatch Range. Mormon legislators
made laws that gave to every man,
whatever his faith, the full enjoymen
of his liberties.
If Mormons have ever discouraged
GENTLE immigration, you must
go elsewhere than to the stat
ute books OF the Territory
to discover or prove that fact
Twenty odd years later the railroad
came, and with 1t an influx of Gentiles,
that for the first time swelled the non.
Mormon fraction of the community to
respectable size. Nor did this access
sion change the political hue of the
Legislature. Mormons continued to
make the laws, and to control the
destinies of the Territory as far as such
control is possible in our unrepublican
Territories.
But. Notwithstanding this significant
fact, Gentiles have continued to come,
to invest, to flourish. They have ma
terially added to the wealth and success
OF the Territory. They have not found
themselves hampered by adverse laws.
They have seen no disposition TO dis
criminste against them.
However largely the non-Mornon
population has contributed to the
growth of Utah, the fact cannot be dis
puted that the Territory is to-day just
what the Mormons have made it or
rendered it possible to be made. 1t has
been tue substantial agricultural graz
ing and manufacturing foundation laid
by the Latter day Saints, upon which |
it has been possible to build perma-
nent mining prosperity. Mining alone
does little to enrich country, as wit
ness the forlorn aspect of our western
Nevada, since the de-
cline of her mines. And so with |
Utah, miners and mineral wealth have |
come, and with The exhaustion of veins
might disappear, leaving no marks
save abandoned shafts to indicate its
Former presence, were it not for the |
basic labor of Mormons and the
rich climatic and scenic eudoWments o.
nature If the Mormon enterprise and !
labor had never touched Utah with the !
wand of success, miners would have come !
and gone, as they have done in Ne
|yada; while on the other hand, if Ne
|vada had been the place of Mormon !
COLONIZATION, it would be there |
/ that the fields and gardens and
1he permanency of population
would be- found. That Salt Lake is 3
metropolis. the terminus snd objective
point of various railroads is due to the
act that the Mormons founded and |
9uilt up the city and settled the ada
4eDC vallSyS.
In view of these obvious facts, to as
ert that real estate, which is only what
he Latter-day Saints have directly or
Indirectly made it, viii decline fifty per
lent. when the Mormons get complete
IcntroI OF the Territory, Of which they
ave always had control at least to the
xclusion of all local opponents, reads
ke the senseIess mutterings Of an
sdiot.
Why do business men among Gen
les IN in silent, and thus create the
IMPRESSION that they favor the cpposi-
on q STATEHOOD? We believe it capa-
lie Il the dearest demonstration, that
commercial interests of the Terri
5ry are vitality concerned in tn sue